Weblog entry #4 for forrest
See all weblog entries made by forrest.
#4
my linux instability hell
Posted by forrest on Fri 8 Dec 2006 at 04:53
My main machine, my pride and joy, my desktop ... has slowly become more and more unstable until I really can't ignore it.
These are more notes to myself to try and keep track of what I have and haven't tried, but if anyone has a suggestion I'd be glad to hear it.
This machine, gemini, is a dual-Athlon box with a Tyan S2466N-4M mobo.
I have an ATI graphics card and a ViewSonic VX900 LCD monitor: a combo which acts funky in a way that maybe I'll begin to describe once I've discussed the system hangs sufficiently.
When I got this machine I was running a 2.4.x SMP kernel, and even then it hanged (hung?) occasionally. That seemed to be related to it choosing a 3-D screensaver.
So, I just didn't do that.
The SMP kernels seemed to work fine up to 2.6.10. I didn't upgrade for a long time and the next kernel I tried was 2.6.16. With SMP turned on, I could get as far as logging into my GNOME session, but it would hang pretty quickly whenever I started doing anything. I found I could consistently get it to hang by opening a terminal window, playing an ogg file with ogg123, and trying to drag the terminal window. Usually the window would only move a little bit before the system locked up.
I tried turning off "Preempt the Big Kernel Lock" because that sounded particularly ominous, but the result was the same.
Tragically, I'm running a uniprocessor 2.6.16 now, wasting half my processing power.
When I tried upgrading to 2.6.18, I couldn't even run a uniprocessor kernel. The modes of failure were different this time ...
I guess you could say that 2.6.18 uni didn't crash, it boots all the way up but when GDM is supposed to fire up the screen goes blank. I logged in remotely from another linux box I have and "top" told me that Xorg was taking over 90% of the CPU!
... more later ...
These are more notes to myself to try and keep track of what I have and haven't tried, but if anyone has a suggestion I'd be glad to hear it.
This machine, gemini, is a dual-Athlon box with a Tyan S2466N-4M mobo.
I have an ATI graphics card and a ViewSonic VX900 LCD monitor: a combo which acts funky in a way that maybe I'll begin to describe once I've discussed the system hangs sufficiently.
When I got this machine I was running a 2.4.x SMP kernel, and even then it hanged (hung?) occasionally. That seemed to be related to it choosing a 3-D screensaver.
So, I just didn't do that.
The SMP kernels seemed to work fine up to 2.6.10. I didn't upgrade for a long time and the next kernel I tried was 2.6.16. With SMP turned on, I could get as far as logging into my GNOME session, but it would hang pretty quickly whenever I started doing anything. I found I could consistently get it to hang by opening a terminal window, playing an ogg file with ogg123, and trying to drag the terminal window. Usually the window would only move a little bit before the system locked up.
I tried turning off "Preempt the Big Kernel Lock" because that sounded particularly ominous, but the result was the same.
Tragically, I'm running a uniprocessor 2.6.16 now, wasting half my processing power.
When I tried upgrading to 2.6.18, I couldn't even run a uniprocessor kernel. The modes of failure were different this time ...
I guess you could say that 2.6.18 uni didn't crash, it boots all the way up but when GDM is supposed to fire up the screen goes blank. I logged in remotely from another linux box I have and "top" told me that Xorg was taking over 90% of the CPU!
... more later ...
Comments on this Entry
Posted by Anonymous (59.178.xx.xx) on Fri 8 Dec 2006 at 06:58
Is it an X thing? Is it a GDM thing? Memtest86 check done? Heat? (do the fan checks).
[ Parent | Reply to this comment ]
Is this an X thing? If you run the machine without starting x is it stable?
nvidia and ATI kernel drivers are buggy as hell and can make X very unstable. Try the stock x.org drivers.
I've heard a lot of people say that APM/ACPI can lead to a lot of instability, are either turned on?
--
"It's Not Magic, It's Work"
Adam
nvidia and ATI kernel drivers are buggy as hell and can make X very unstable. Try the stock x.org drivers.
I've heard a lot of people say that APM/ACPI can lead to a lot of instability, are either turned on?
--
"It's Not Magic, It's Work"
Adam
[ Parent | Reply to this comment ]
Posted by Utumno (211.72.xx.xx) on Fri 8 Dec 2006 at 18:01
[ Send Message | View Utumno's Scratchpad | View Weblogs ]
[ Send Message | View Utumno's Scratchpad | View Weblogs ]
Like people have said already, I would try booting the thing without X and seeing if it is stable. You can then try your ogg123 test.
If it is stable then, try using stock X.org graphics drivers.
If it is stable then, try using stock X.org graphics drivers.
[ Parent | Reply to this comment ]
Posted by Anonymous (216.113.xx.xx) on Thu 21 Dec 2006 at 06:56
I'm trying to run Debian Sarge 2.6.8 on an IBM xSeries 330 with Dual P3 866MHz and find that the system crashes every 2 hours -> 3 weeks. No idea what triggers the crash. No X running (text only console) -- not harware, have three identical units and all show the problem. Ran like a champ with a uniprocessor kernel.
Still trying to get to the bottom of this one.
Still trying to get to the bottom of this one.
[ Parent | Reply to this comment ]